My Home

Thursday, June 26, 2014

It seems like I'm not making much progress. I do remember that I get this way every summer. No energy, no enthusiasm. I did not win my riches in Las Vegas, so I'm still working. :) Things there are still in a holding pattern as well. My eyes are now on September. It doesn't start cooling off here yet at that point, but I'm starting the process of looking for flights back to MO to visit, and it hopefully will be cooler back there by then.

The cats are healthy and I guess happy. Most of the time they are fun. Way too much of the time they are destroying stuff or accidentally(?) hurting me with their claws or teeth. Just playing. I'm learning to trim claws. Mostly Rasta, the younger one, is just too energetic and curious for my lifestyle. He also is the most affectionate one, which is what saves him. So far.

I now have insurance on the mobile home. The taxes are paid up. I'm totally legal. For now. For most of the other stuff, it's one step forward 3 steps back.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but it doesn't rain a whole lot here in Phoenix. That is a problem in that with no rain, the dirt doesn't get washed off the Jeep. With the soft top I can't go to most car washes, I need one with the wand that goes around the Jeep after I pull into the stall, not the kind that gets pulled along an assembly cleaning line. I haven't found one of those here yet. There is some physics in why, but I'll take their word for it. I ran it through the one in Platte City, MO a couple of times back a year ago February to get the road salt off from my Chicago runs. That one is totally awesome, and if it was here I'd be running the Jeep through it weekly. Really. Then I moved out here. The poor Jeep has seen very little water since.

A few weeks ago I unearthed the hose assembly Mom gave me. It's one of those wonder hose things you can ball up 50' of in you hand when it isn't full of water. That's great, but it also lets it hide. However, I wanted the Jeep clean and today I did it, washed the Jeep the old fashioned way with a bucket of soapy water and the hose. Not a lot of hose water like I did in my childhood in the midwest, this is a desert. But I also hosed down the side of the mobile home that is inside the car port as the way the wind is here is sucks dust and all up into the car port. So, the Jeep, the mobile home, and I got hosed down nice and good.

I then got my new small vac out and had to search for an electric outlet outside. Found one, and managed to pretty much vacuum out all the dust and palm tree debris (small seed-like things that get everywhere...). Then I wiped down the inside dash and steering wheel and console.

The reason for all this is I'm going to Vegas again next week. This time I'm staying at Paris, the ritsy folk place. I plan to actually use Valet Parking (mostly because I don't know where the Paris self-park is) and I want to make sure there isn't anything I'd miss lurking in a corner of the Jeep. I also don't want to be ashamed to have a Paris valet take my keys and get into my nice, new (ok, now 6 yo) Jeep. So, Jeep is ready. I'm sweaty and tired and sore.

I also jogged 40 pillars this morning. It doesn't hurt a lot more to do 40 than 25. Pain is the same. I'll celebrate when I hit 300'. I'm 60' or 10 pillars from there.

Thursday, June 05, 2014

I did my walk early today as I have things I want to do and most of them have me taking a shower first. I figured I should do my walk/run before taking a shower. So, around 5am, just as the sun was lighting the sky I went out. I walk/run along a side street that has little or no traffic along one side of my mobile home park. The park has a concrete block wall along it with pillars every 6ft or so. The first day I jogged I made it past 15 of the pillars. The second day, 25. Today, 35. So, I'm off to a good start on jogging. I'll take 4 days off from jogging and just walk on the treadmill the days I work since I can't get to do it until after noon when it is way too hot to be outside for me.

Other than that I've been lazy around here these days off. I did finish the baby blanket and I am rinsing it out now. I do that for baby blankets as I have cats and I want to get as much of the cat hair and such off as I can before I give it to a baby. The baby isn't due until September, but I'll take it into my co-worker (the husband) on Monday morning as that is the next time I work with him. I will try to get a picture of it here. It ended up 37" x 36".

As for the Elio car, yes, I'll have to get a motorcycle endorsement to drive it. In 4 states, unfortunately Missouri being one of them, I even have to wear a helmet even though it is an enclosed car. The hope is that laws will change for 3 wheeled cars by then. Of course, the flip side of that is they may then be classified as a car for plates and insurance. With a replacement cost of under $7K I can't believe either of those will be much.

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

I just reserved a spot in line for a new car, to be delivered sometime next year:

http://www.eliomotors.com

I can't figure out how to post a picture of it that is the right size, but it is a 3-wheeled car built on a chassis like the CamAm Spyder, with 2 wheels in front and one in back. Seats 2, has heat and ac and a radio and usb ports. Gas mileage is projected to be 49city/84highway. And it will cost $6,800.00 and no, I didn't miss a zero there. Under seven thousand dollars for a new car and it is licensed and insured as a motorcycle (read: cheaper)

So, I figure I've gambled $100 on less before, what it cost to make my reservation. Maybe by next summer I'll have a new ride.

I have my daily walk in already. It was cool enough to walk outside at 5:30 am, so I did. Inspired by Gypsy moving into a jog, I did the same. I jogged until my legs started mentioning it might be a good idea to stop, maybe 80-90 feet into it. My lungs caught up to the fact that I wasn't just walking about 10 steps after I slowed back down, and I felt it in my chest muscles for awhile during the rest of my walk. It isn't just the leg muscles that need to get into shape, it takes muscles to move my breathing in and out while exercising, and those muscles haven't been working hard lately, either.

I came back in and I'm working on getting one of my laptops up to date enough to hook the feed-through scanner to it so I can scan papers while sitting in my recliner. When I turned it on yesterday or the day before (forget which) it was reaaalllly slow. It aggravates me when my computers don't perform up to my standards, I mean, I do this for a living! So this morning I deleted off all old programs, especially since I don't really use that laptop much anymore. Then I defragged it. After a reboot it was running a lot better. Then I looked at a folder of old bookmarks from the late 2000's, up to maybe 2008? It was nice to find places I don't visit anymore, sad to see some that are no longer updated, and I found that a former friend is doing a bicycle tour. So, I will copy that folder to my current desktop and merge the links into my life again.

One blog was making a statement about how blogging has seemingly turned from a nice way to express oneself and meet with like-minded folks into something to 'create content' and 'monetize'. This blog entry was from a couple of years ago when blogging changed quite a lot in a short period of time as it was 'discovered' by large numbers of folks. My blog stays pretty old-school. I don't mind monetizing so much if it doesn't get in the way of the blog itself. This blog isn't monetized for one main reason: I have a good job. I know several folks have links and ads because they are on a fixed or low income and it is a way to bring in some money they wouldn't otherwise have. I am currently making a good paycheck so I don't try to compete with those folks for those dollars. I just give thanks for my ability to stay employed and go on.

On a related note, I had my review with my boss. He looked at me earlier in the day and patted me and said, 'it's good, don't worry so much' and I shrugged and said 'well, I already cleaned out my locker, so I'm good...' In reality, it was a good review. I can't move to the other department yet because they need me where I am now for awhile yet. Remember when I said we'd been told to 'hang on for April 1' for things to get better? Well, things move slower than that. Some of the new folks didn't pass their background check, and others are having to wait for their laptops to show up, and then they have to be trained. So, I got a lot of flowery words saying how much he needs me where I am and what a good job I'm doing. For now, I'm valuable. I'll go with that.